Friday, September 7, 2007

Wednesday, at 2 am (so, Thursday morning) Jared's shoulder popped out of socket in his sleep. This is a recurring thing from a football injury in high school, that happens about every year and a half to two years . . . so, we are not strangers to ER trips at all times of the day or night. As you can imagine, this is a very painful thing for Jared and we try to talk about all sorts of things (food and music are the usual suspects) to keep his mind off of the pain and to make time go by for both of us. So, we talked about what he would like to eat when we got out of there and of course after we got to go to bed. As his personal short order cook, biscuits and gravy was requested. We finally got home about 7, fell asleep about 8 and slept til 2 in the afternoon. So, we had breakfast for lunch and biscuits and gravy is what Jared and I had.I got the biscuit recipe from Love Like A Vegan's blog and they turned out great, not as pretty though. I'm not sure why but I didn't end up having to use as much soy milk as the recipe called for. The gravy was my version of years and years of me paying attention to how my Grammie made her breakfast gravy (hers either had bacon or sausage bits & grease). I first browned 4 heaping tbsp of unbleached all purpose flour in a frying pan under medium heat for only a few minutes (watch closely!). I took the browned (not scorched/burnt) flour out and added a touch of canola oil to fry up 3 frozen veggie sausage links, along with a glug of maple syrup. After those browned, I mashed them in the pan until they were very crumbly. I took out the sausage crumbles and added 4 tbsp of Earth Balance (buttery sticks) to the pan. I made a roux with the Earth Balance and browned flour, added sea salt and fresh ground black pepper. Once the roux cooked for a few minutes, I slowly added soy milk until the gravy came together at a thickness we liked . . . we like our gravy on the thick side. If you like a thinner gravy, add more soy milk. I then stirred in the sausage crumbles. I can't even tell you how much this was right on to how my Grammie's gravy taste. We were kind of amazed actually.

That looks like the ultimate comfort food! Glad the biscuits turned out for you, I found I shouldn't have added as much soymilk as well and ended up having to add extra flour to help the dough out. Next time, I'm definitely reducing it and see how they turn out.

Wow, what a time you guys had! Hope Jared is feeling better! The biscuits look so much like the "non vegan" version! My grandma used to make these all the time for me when I was younger. Thanks for the post!